Doing A Little DIY? What You Need To Consider Before Getting Started

My husband has been planning on putting up a curtain rail in the children’s room for longer than I can remember. I’m hoping that over the festive season as he is spending plenty of time at home he might finally grab his tools and get the job done so we can finally get rid of the dust sheets that have been posing as make shift curtains for a number of years now.

Doing some DIY jobs around the house can be an incredibly satisfying and useful way to spend your time and save a little cash at the same time. My husband has done the majority of the work in our home with assistance from another family member. It’s great to be able to make improvement within your home by using your own expertise. That being said, doing things yourself isn’t always the best option. Not everyone is handy with a hammer or drill and if you don’t know what you’re doing you could end up creating a job that will cost far more to fix than the original work would have cost. With that in mind, here are a few things that consider before you get your toolbox out.

How Long Will It Take?

Figuring out a time frame for a DIY job can be extremely important since some of these projects are going to be somewhat time sensitive. Building a birdhouse for example isn’t going to require much of a deadline but if your toilet is leaking then that’s going to involve a certain degree of pressure especially if like me you have a small herd of children in the house that might need to use it every 20 minutes. If it seems as though the time it would take you to deal with the DIY job yourself is longer than you’re really willing to wait then it might be better to contact a professional.

The worst thing that you can do is jump into a DIY project without being completely clued up. I know a few people that have attempted DIY projects at home and have missed out relevant steps resulting in botched jobs that look awful. One of these attempted to tiled their bathroom wall and their tiles were far from straight.

If they had taken simple steps to ensure they had all the necessary tools such as a spirit level then they would have had a much better result. This leads me on to the next area for thought:

Do You Have The Right Tools?

It would be nice to say that you can accomplish any task no matter what tools you have but that’s simply not true. The reality is that there are plenty of things that require specific equipment if you want to complete a project to a decent standard.

There are few things more frustrating than realising halfway through a job that you’re not going to be able to finish it because you don’t have the right equipment. It’s a bit like baking a cake and finding you forgot to buy sugar which happened to me yesterday, whoopsy.

I’m not an attempt to discourage anyone from trying to deal with household DIY jobs themselves, far from it. However, it’s important that you actually know what you are taking on before you start any job. If it seems as though it’s going to be a little more than you can manage don’t let your pride get in the way. There’s nothing wrong with deciding that a project might be a bit much and getting in contact with a professional who can complete the work to a high standard.

Do you have any DIY projects at home that you or your partner need to work on?

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If there is D.I.Y. to do in our house, you will usually find me involved heavily in it. Before I met my now husband, I was totally independant and that meant learning all kinds of skills I never expected to. Planning is a key part of any project, because like you say, nothing worse than starting a job and finding you don’t have all you need, or that you’ve done it wrong.

My partner is very practical, and has tools for everything. He always does a good job, as long as you don’t mind waiting a year or two for him to get around to it! I on the other hand am eternally clumsy so stay away from the toolbox!